18 Seconds to Make Old Things New Again
by Amberwind2001
Summary: He'd just left Rose Tyler behind in an alley. So what was she doing nearly a hundred years in her relative future? And what's with all the Zeppelins? AU, part of the Survival series.
1. Brooding & An Unexpected Shift

This story was originally written in 2007, and posted to Teaspoon and LJ. I'm working on archiving it here on FF, as a work-up to finally finishing the final two planned stories in the series. Yes, I know. I work on the same time-table as glaciers.

**Warning:** Brief mentions of violence, non-graphic. Angst.  
**Disclaimer:** I own nothing at all, and I make no money from this.

~.o0o.~

**Chapter 1 - Brooding and an Unexpected Shift**

_"Death is natural and necessary, but not just. It is a random force of nature; survival is equally accidental. Each loss is an occasion to remember that survival is a gift." - Harriet McBryde Johnson_

The Doctor punched a final button, sending the TARDIS spinning into the vortex, and leaned against the console, head hung low in brooding thought. She'd wanted to say yes-he could see it in her eyes, in the tilt of her shoulder as she asked if it was always this dangerous. For a dizzying moment, he'd allowed himself the luxury of hope; that somehow, the universe would figure out that it owed him one (or a few dozen, really), and that she'd join him.

Strange, how during the few hours in her presence the ache in his hearts had dulled to a tolerable background throb instead of the wrenching pain that had driven his forward tilt into each new crisis since the sickness of regeneration had tapered off. Of course, this time around had still been dangerous, but for the first time in Rassilon knew how long, he found himself enjoying the challenge set before him.

And stranger still, he'd wanted to _live_ through it, not merely survive the encounter. Since regenerating, his duties towards Time had acquired the quality of a protracted Gallifreyan form of _hara-kiri_, with survival the unfortunate side effect of getting the ritual wrong. There were so many others who deserved to come out from the destruction of Gallifrey relatively unscathed (emotional scarring aside-he certainly didn't count it, considering it part of his just punishment), so many innocents, and his own death had seemed fitting penance for being the one to press the button, for having the audacity for a last act of rebellion against his people and surviving while the rest of them burned.

But then, like an avenging angel, that daft little ape had swung from a chain and saved his life, and as he caught her he found himself _wanting to live_, to enjoy doing the right thing, and for the first time since the Time War ended, it actually felt forgivable to still be standing. For the first time since Gallifrey burned, he felt like himself. Is it really so surprising, then, that he went against his own better judgment and invited her to come along?

The Doctor grimaced and ran a hand roughly over his features. He'd sounded so desperate, bordering on weak, and she'd all but said no. But then, she hadn't actually said, "No," had she? She'd gone with an excuse, an obligation to that _pathetic lump_ cowering at her feet (and he did give her points for such a fitting description) that he was sure she would have disregarded without blinking if he had just said the right thing. He knew he had forgotten to tell her something...

No. It was better to just put it behind him, put _her_ behind him, and move on to the next task. No matter that she had seemed to thrive on this life; she is inquisitive, brave, and she has so much potential. Best not to drag her along and subject her to his death wish.

The Doctor straightened up at that thought, and began turning dials and flicking switches on the console, setting in the coordinates for a temporal anomaly he'd sensed while on his way to deal with the Nestene Consciousness. If he was going to indulge in suicidal tendencies, he might as well get on with it while the going was good. And perhaps, he could keep enough of that _alive_ feeling he'd had around Rose to make it a worthwhile demise.

With one last pull of a lever, the Doctor started the TARDIS materializing, only to feel everything shift to the side with a sickening lurch, far more violent than the usual turbulence of his landings, and the TARDIS began shaking and bucking beneath his feet. He frantically ran from screen to buttons to dials, trying to get his ship to finish materializing.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!"

He chanted denials as the Cloister Bell rang from deep within the ship, and the TARDIS gave a final heave, throwing him hard against a support strut as she came grinding back into reality. The Doctor saw black at the edge of his vision, and succumbed to darkness as both consciousness and the TARDIS's power slipped away.

~0~0~0~

Coming back to the waking world was like trying to climb up out of a tar pit, and for a while the Doctor was tempted to allow himself to simply lay there on the grating until everything sorted itself for once. _No rest for the wicked_, he thought grimly, and he forced himself onto his knees, fumbling in the dark to get upright and standing again. As he got to his knees, however, he blinked in confusion, and his eyes widened.

Darkness. His vision was completely submerged in inky black, and although he could feel the deck grating beneath his hands, he couldn't see it. He reached blindly into his breast pocket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver, its familiar buzzing filling the air as blue light spilled from the tip, barely illuminating the space around where the Doctor had been thrown.

The TARDIS was completely dark, and as the Doctor reached out, he realized she was also lifeless. His mind had felt particularly hollow since the Time War, without the minds of his people humming in his subconscious, but the TARDIS had always been there, murmuring in the background, offering some measure of reassurance with her presence. Now, she was just _gone_, and the echoing loneliness in the Doctor's head was terrifying.

He stumbled past the console in a daze; no signs of life in the old girl at all. No spark, no nudge, nothing. The last piece of his homeworld had died around him, and the Doctor felt himself slipping into numbed shock.

His feet went into autopilot, carrying him out of the TARDIS doors and into the sunlight outside. He locked the door behind him, and then slid down to the pavement, back against the door and knees up to his chest. The Doctor folded his arms, tucking his hands to his sides and staring forward, unheeding of the single tear tracing down one cheek and splashing onto the leather of his jacket.

Around him, people bustled about the Millennium Centre, oblivious to the strange blue box and the dark man huddled against it, and a zeppelin floated overhead, blocking the bright midday sun and casting a cold shadow over the TARDIS and her pilot.


	2. A Piece of Her Past

**Chapter 2 – A Piece of Her Past**

_"We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams." - Jeremy Irons_

~.o0o.~

Rose rolled onto her back and arched upwards, stretching her arms above her head in a distinctly feline manner before letting out a huff and relaxing into the cot again. These days, her flat was for appearance's sake—on the rare occasion when she succumbed to sleep, she slept on this cot in the Hub's basement more often than not, and the only things in this world that mattered to her were in the pockets of the black jeans puddled on the floor. Her superphone (useless in this universe), and two photographs encased in a battered leather billfold.

The first was of a sunny day outside the Millennium Centre, two men with their arms wrapped around the shoulders of a blonde girl, all three grinning madly. The second, of a shabby council flat at Christmastime, the same blonde girl jumping forward to try and grab an object in the hand of a tall man in brown pinstripes, laughter writ broad across their expressions. The paper the photos were printed on was browning, colors fading from age and care.

Rose reached down to the floor, plucking the billfold from the pocket it normally resided in, opening it and running her fingertips lovingly over the faces of Jack and each of her Doctors. It had been 93 years since that truncated goodbye on Bad Wolf Bay, and she still had days where her chest felt hollow and ached with loss. Too many of them, if she allowed herself to think about it, especially when she dwelled on those things that were left unspoken. Of course, she _knew_ what the Doctor had been about to say, but it still stung that he was cut off before he could get the words out, especially now that Time was stretching out before her like an unending road.

Rose sat up and swung her feet to the cold concrete floor, wincing slightly at the sensation. She could hear voices floating down from the Hub above her—two men arguing, probably over something utterly mundane. Matthew and Bryce couldn't even pretend to be civil if Rhiannon wasn't around to keep them in line and play referee to their squabbling. At times it was like watching some sort of bizarre mating ritual.

She found herself half wishing that they would just shag each other and get on with it.

Rose stood and shimmied back into her jeans, tucking the billfold back into her pocket and tightening the belt at her hips. She peeled off the t-shirt she'd worn to sleep in, retrieving her bra from where it had been discarded a few hours ago.

She had been out with Rhiannon and Thomas until six in the morning, having spent the better part of the night tracking a Weevil through a series of abandoned warehouses. They had finally managed to corner and capture it just as the first rays of daylight were creeping up over the horizon, and after they had gotten it back to the Hub and contained, she gave them the day off to rest. Eight hours spent chasing something that was likely to rip your throat out was taxing at the best of times, and it had been a bad week to start.

Rose glanced at the alarm clock on her table as she fumbled with the hooks on her bra. It read 11:57am—not quite six hours of sleep, the longest kip she'd had in recent memory, and for the first time in years, no dreams. Her dreams didn't make sense most of the time—usually her second Doctor, occasionally the first, and always in places and situations that felt real, but weren't memory. Her second Doctor in a blue suit instead of brown pinstripes, running from an explosion with a dark skinned woman and Captain Jack. Her first Doctor in leather, looking up at a zeppelin from the middle of the Millennium Centre.

Rose picked up the midriff wrap top off the floor and pulled the long sleeves over her arms, circling the ties around her torso twice before tying them in the back. A lifetime ago, someone had told her the color was violently pink, and in the years since the description had proven apt. She tried, so very hard, to live up to the Doctor's example and solve problems without resorting to bloodshed, but too often it became unavoidable. Time had taught her the truly precious value of that singular day in 1941 when everyone had lived.

She combed her fingers quickly through her hair. It was shorter than in used to be, barely brushing her jaw, and she had stopped dyeing it decades ago. Now, it framed her face in dark waves, bright golden highlights streaking through it at random that she couldn't remember being there when she was a child. Then again, so many things had changed since she was a child.

Rose studied herself for a moment in the small mirror she had hung on the wall. 113 years old, and she still didn't look a day past twenty. She ran a finger lightly over the tattoo on her abdomen, above her right hip. She traced the two characters, the twirling symbols of traditional Mandarin, inscribed on her skin just over 70 years ago, during a time when she was having to examine herself and come to terms with what she was—Huai Lang. Bad Wolf.

Rose sucked in a deep breath, and closed her eyes, wrapping a hand around the TARDIS key hanging from the chain at her throat. She hadn't taken it off since the last time she'd used it, all those years ago at Canary Wharf. She sent up a silent plea to whichever deity happened to be listening at the time, asking that the Doctor be safe, and that he wasn't alone. When she was younger, she'd been selfish enough to want him to pine away for her, but after tasting bitter experience she knew better. No one could last the centuries without a hand to hold.

She opened her eyes and let the TARDIS key fall back to her chest. The argument above her head grew louder, and with a heaving sigh Rose toed on her pink and white trainers, and climbed the ladder up to the Hub to face the day.

~0~0~0~

Matthew Johnston scowled at the image on the CCTV, and then back at Bryce. "Look Bry, all I'm saying is that we should wait for Rose. That thing just appeared out of nowhere. That man, or whatever, hasn't moved. We don't know what it is…"

Bryce Griffith got right up in Matthew's face, cutting him off. "Which is even more reason why we need to go up there and take control of the situation! That thing could be a menace!"

"A menace?" Matthew scoffed. "It hasn't bloody moved! Rose usually knows what do with this kind of weird stuff, and I think we should wait for her."

"Of course she knows what to do when weird things come up! Rose Tyler is the bloody Queen High Holy Mother of Weird Shit! If she hadn't pulled our arses out of the fire so many times, I'd be first in line to put the little bitch into containment with the Weevils!"

A piercing whistle caused both men to whirl away from their argument in front of the CCTV, and towards the doorway. Rose lowered her hand from her mouth, crossing her arms and leaning against the nearest desk, Thomas's. Bryce had enough sense to drop his gaze. Rose narrowed her eyes at him.

"In case you get any ideas, Bryce, I'll have you know London already had me put into containment, twice, and it got them nothing but headaches. Now," Rose pointed at the CCTV behind the two men, "would one of you mind telling me what the hell is going on?"

Bryce looked away shamefaced, his already red skin getting even blotchier for his embarrassment. Looking at Bryce and Matthew side by side was a study in contrasts—Bryce was rail-thin, pale, ginger-haired and freckled, while Matthew was built like a middleweight boxer, dark haired and muscular with a tan that managed to stay unblemished in spite of Welsh weather and the insane schedule demanded by a life at Torchwood. Rose was positive the tan was fake.

Matthew cleared his throat. "Well, we're not quite sure about that. We were watching the CCTV when this box just appeared, in the middle of everything up top. A man came out about twenty minutes ago, and sat down. Hasn't moved since."

Rose felt her heart leap up into her throat. "A box?"

Rose pushed past both of them and leaned down, face inches from the monitor. There, in the middle of the screen, was the most welcome sight she had seen in the last ninety years; the TARDIS, large as life. But the man slumped against the wooden door was not the one she was expecting. She traced a finger over his form on the screen, dark leather and trousers, close cropped hair, and her lips split into a grin. She breathed out words she'd been hoping to say to a different (the same) man. "Hello, Doctor."

Rose straightened up suddenly, and ran to her desk, grabbing her purple scarf and navy tweed jacket from where they had been draped across the back of her chair. As she wound the scarf around her neck and shrugged on the jacket, Rose began firing out orders rapidly.

"I'm going up top. Don't follow me, just watch on the CCTV. When I bring him down, don't mention anything you know about me. I don't know when he's from, so I won't know what's safe to say around him until I've talked to him a mo'. Matt, I need you to start a scan of the area looking for high concentrations of a specific radiation profile; you'll find the exact specs in the files for my original medical workup. Dig deep in the records—it's there somewhere. And Bry, you might want to start the kettle—he looks like he could use a cuppa."

Both men stood slack-jawed for a moment, and then started shouting over one another.

"What the hell are you thinking, going up there without backup?" Bryce thundered.

"When he's from? Are you serious?" Matthew blinked, disbelievingly.

Rose leveled her gaze at both men. "Yes, Bry, without backup. I know him, and he's not dangerous, at least not to me. And Matt, yes, I mean when he's from, not where he's from. I know it sounds odd, but I've got to go up there, and I've got to do it alone, and I really can't afford to have you two questioning me or bickering with each other. I promise I'll explain later."

Bryce scowled at Rose as she made her way to the lift. "But what the hell is it?"

Rose beamed at him, the first truly genuine smile she'd given anyone in years. "It's fantastic!" She shook her head and grinned wider as the lift started up. "It's absolutely fantastic."


	3. Complicated

_Thanks for the reviews, follows and favorites, everyone!_

**Chapter 3 – Complicated**

_"Welcome those big, sticky, complicated problems. In them are your most powerful opportunities." - Ralph Marston_

~.o0o.~

It took every ounce of willpower Rose had not to bolt straight from the lift and to the Doctor's side. Instead, she forced herself to take a deep breath, and observe her surroundings. She stepped out from the alley concealing the lift entrance, and into the sunlight of the Millennium Centre courtyard, squinting in the brightness while her eyes adjusted.

At times like this, Rose marveled at her race's insistence on wearing blinders to go through life. Barely twenty yards from where she stood, in the middle of a popular tourist attraction, a blue police box had appeared out of thin air, and drew no attention. The most amazing man in the universe was sitting against it, and no one looked at him. No wonder her first Doctor had often referred to humans as stupid apes.

She took measured steps towards the TARDIS, timing her stride to her heartbeat. Of course, her heart was racing, and in what seemed to be no time at all she found herself next to the TARDIS, and next to him. The Doctor didn't look up, and she took a moment to drink in his appearance.

He was so achingly familiar, her first Doctor, all leather coat and big ears. She and Jack had often teased him for his appearance, but secretly she had always loved it. Then again, she suspected that she'd love whatever face the Doctor wore, because underneath it all he was her Doctor. But right now, at this moment, his features held an expression she had only seen a few times, and it was one that broke her heart a little—pain, guilt and loss were written across his features, emotions that he had always worked so hard to mask.

It didn't take much to figure out why. As she brushed her fingers across the TARDIS's wood-that-wasn't-wooden door, the usual telepathic hum of the time ship was missing. The first time she had come here, so many years ago, the Doctor had gone into a bit of shock when the TARDIS lost power, and said she had died. Back then, though, he'd had her and Mickey as a distraction, and his shock hadn't taken over. This Doctor looked to be alone, and Rose knew that with the scars from the Time War still fresh, the TARDIS losing power so completely was far more traumatic for him.

"Doctor?" Rose questioned tentatively. She didn't want to startle him in this state-he might lash out, and while he couldn't do her any permanent damage, that didn't mean it wouldn't hurt.

"Doctor?"

When he didn't react to her voice, Rose decided to take a bit of a risk. She knew that annoying him wasn't the smartest thing she could do under the circumstances, but getting him to rise to the bait might snap him out of his daze, and it would give him something to focus on other than his guilt.

Rose nudged the Doctor's hip with her toe twice, and waited for him to look up. As he finally turned his face to look at her, the shadow from the passing zeppelin left, and the Cardiff sunshine seemed to touch him for the first time, bathing him in warm golden color. Rose put on her best cheeky grin, her tongue poking out of her teeth playfully.

"So, can anyone crash this pity party, or is it invite only?"

~0~0~0~

The Doctor blinked up at the girl standing above him, and gaped a bit, shutting his jaw and putting on his best scowl once it occurred to him that he was doing a very bad impression of a fish. He couldn't see her well with eyes dazzled by the sudden shift in light, but he could see she was young, with short dark hair, and an odd sense of fashion, if the tiny pink top and dark tweed coat more suited to a white-haired history professor than a wisp of a girl were any indication of her normal wardrobe. _Not that I'm one to judge,_ the Doctor reflected ruefully.

"What would you care?" The Doctor ground out spitefully, "It's not anything your tiny ape brain could understand." Even as he said it, the Doctor winced a bit internally. _Oh yes, that's a good way to win friends and influence people. _

But instead of being offended and screaming or walking off in a fit like he expected, the girl shook her head and squatted down next to him, reaching out a hand and cupping his cheek in a gesture that was overly familiar, brushing away the tear tracks there with her thumb. He hadn't noticed he'd been crying until she did that. Her voice was gentle as she replied, "Oh, I don't know. I think you'd be surprised at exactly how much I understand."

Without the glare of the sun behind her, the girl's features resolved themselves into clarity, and the Doctor felt himself resuming his fish imitation. Her hair was shorter, and much darker, and her eyes held a depth of experience that hadn't been present before, but the young woman stroking his face was undeniably familiar.

"Rose?" The Doctor asked, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

She gave him a brilliant grin in response. "Hello, Doctor."

"But, how?" The Doctor puzzled, beginning to furrow his brow in confusion, and alternatively pointing to her, himself, and the door of the TARDIS as his brain turned over what had happened, trying to make sense of the current situation. "I left you in that alley with the idiot, and the coordinates I set were nowhere near your time, and then the TARDIS got pulled off course..."

Rose gave a deep sigh, her smile dropping at the same time as her hand from his cheek. The Doctor immediately found himself missing the contact, for reasons he wasn't sure he was comfortable thinking about. _She's just a child..._

"Well, that answers my first question," Rose exhaled loudly as she straightened and offered him a hand up. The Doctor grasped her hand and put his feet beneath him, confusion overtaking his features completely as he stood to tower over her. After a moment, his natural curiosity won out.

"Okay, I'll bite. What was the question?"

Rose shrugged, as if this was a perfectly normal conversation for her. "I needed to know when you came from, so I know what's safe to talk about, which turns out to be exactly nothing, since you haven't gone back for me yet. And I probably shouldn't have told you that, even," she finished, poking him in the chest with her finger.

The Doctor's eyes widened, and then narrowed as he started to think out loud. "This isn't right. I left you behind in that alley, and I never go back to ask twice. Actually, it's a rare thing that I ask a first time. You're talking like you know something I don't, and I very much doubt that's possible. It would have taken a huge energy source or disruption in time to pull the TARDIS that way, and do what it did to her..." The Doctor's voice trailed off again as he was once again reminded of his current situation; stranded, with a dead TARDIS and the echoing hollowness in his head reverberating endlessly.

Rose took his hand, shaking her head and looking at him with concern in her eyes. "Actually, Doctor, it's a lot more complicated than that," she said, and pointed towards the sky, where another zeppelin was drifting overhead.


	4. Tempers, Steel, and Sympathy

**Chapter 4 - Tempers, Steel, and Sympathy**

_"Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it." - G. K. Chesterton_

~.o0o.~

Rose shook her head in bemusement as the Doctor let go of her hand and stepped away from the TARDIS, spinning in a circle to take in his surroundings. As he stood gazing up at the passing zeppelin, though, her heart stopped for a split second. In that instant, with his arms hanging by his sides and his head tilted back, he looked exactly as he did in her dreams. _Okay, now I know 'complicated' doesn't even begin to cover it._

The Doctor turned to her again, and fixed her with a stern gaze. "This is wrong."

Rose sighed and folded her arms, leaning against the TARDIS door as she did so and adopting the same pose he had often assumed when lecturing her, long ago. "Actually, all of this," she explained, making a sweeping hand gesture at the zeppelins, "is right. It's supposed to be like this. Here, it's you and me that are all wrong. We don't belong here. 'S why the TARDIS shut herself down."

Rose allowed herself a small smile as the Doctor narrowed his eyes at her, processing the information. It hadn't been often that she had known something the Doctor didn't, aside from his inclination to be utterly oblivious to his immediate surroundings, and she felt a sort of perverse joy in her temporary advantage.

In spite of this, though, Rose felt herself beginning to squirm a bit under the Doctor's scrutiny. True, he hadn't turned the full "Oncoming Storm" glare on her yet, but it was only a matter of time if she kept prodding him. Maybe it was time to stop playing around.

The Doctor's voice was low and icy as he replied, "The TARDIS didn't shut herself down. She _died_."

Rose allowed her own voice to become steely, adopting a tone she had used to reign in difficult recruits and talk down invading aliens for years. The Doctor wasn't the only one who could be intimidating when angered. "You said that last time too, and you were wrong then as well. As hard as it can be for you to accept, you do _not_ know everything!"

The Doctor took a step forward, looming over her as his voice rose in volume. "Well then, why don't you enlighten me?"

Rose stepped up, inches from the Doctor, her face a mask of fury. "I can't!"

Rose met the Doctor's gaze for a tense moment, before her expression crumpled in defeat and she leaned back against the TARDIS doors, rubbing her hand over her forehead in frustration. Her voice was quiet again when she finally spoke. "You know better than anyone that I can't. It's my past, but it's your future. Gingerbread houses, you said. Wasn't about this, but it's the same principle in the end. While I've done a lot of stupid things over the years, you were always very clear that no one should know too much about their own futures, Doctor. I've already said more than I should have."

Rose let her hand drop, and leaned her head back against the TARDIS, her eyes drifting to follow the flight of a passing zeppelin before settling back on the Doctor's face. She knew the Doctor was studying her, gauging her reaction, testing her—it was something he had done often, in both incarnations, and even after 93 years of separation (for her, at least) it was second nature to just leave him to it.

Rose felt a quiet sense of relief as the Doctor seemed to find whatever he was looking for in her, and his own angry expression softened. While she had no problem calling the Doctor on his mistakes and bullheadedness, Rose had never liked actually fighting with him. It was exhausting.

The Doctor rested a hand on her shoulder, and he sounded apologetic as he said, "You're right, you have. But I pushed you into it, and I'm going to have to keep pushing. If what you said is true, and we don't belong here, then it could cause all sorts of merry chaos if I can't figure out what happened and fix it. Which means at the very least I need to know how you got here, and where 'here' is."

Rose arched an eyebrow at him skeptically. "How am I supposed to know that letting you know stuff about your future won't cause a whole different kind of chaos? You change any of it, and it's not just your life changing, it's mine too, and while God knows there are things I would love to change about my life..." Rose shook her head. "It's risky, and I'd rather not get any more familiarity with Reapers than I have to."

Shock registered on the Doctor's features as he squeaked out, "How do you know about Reapers?" Before Rose could reply, though, he held up a hand to cut her off. "Actually, nevermind. That's a good thing. You're thinking out consequences, which is more than I'd expect of most of you apes."

Rose allowed herself a snort of derisive laughter. That comment had just been so _Doctorish_ of him, she couldn't help herself. She'd almost forgotten how much of an arrogant sod he could be, when given the leeway. "Half the time, Doctor, it's more than we can expect out of _you_."

"Oi!"

"'S true, though!" Rose gave the Doctor a grin, tongue poking out slightly. "I could spend days counting off the number of times we've gotten into trouble because you went and ran your gob! And don't even get me started on your driving..."

~0~0~0~

The Doctor felt the tips of his ears heating up. "There is nothing wrong with how I pilot the TARDIS!" he replied indignantly, crossing his arms over his chest in a defensive gesture.

He saw Rose shoot him an amused look, and just knew his ears were turning pink. "Oh, and you were _planning_ on crash landing in the middle of Cardiff in an alternate universe, then?"

When she said that, some of the puzzle pieces jiggled and settled in the Doctor's mind, and his embarrassment over her teasing dissipated as curiosity and his natural inclination to try and fix things reasserted themselves. "But safe travel between universes is impossible. Has been since...," he let the sentence trail off.

The grin dropped from Rose's face as he spoke, and she finished for him. "The Time War," she whispered, sympathy and what looked like remorse creasing her brow. "I know."

The Doctor felt a wave of pain and remorse of his own over her words. If she knew about the Time War, that meant at some point he'd had reason to burden her with his secrets. And now, all the tiny differences between this Rose and the Rose he had left behind in that alley became startlingly apparent. Her hair was darker and shorter, yes, but it was also unkempt, like she hadn't the will to style it any longer. Where before she had worn too much makeup, now she wore almost none. The tweed jacket she was wearing was too big for her frame, and both it and the purple wool scarf bundled over her chest were darkened in places by old stains, some of which resembled blood. Her eyes, which had sparkled with innocence while running from Autons, still held life, but the innocence had fled and been replaced with a deep-seated pain that he recognized far too well. _Oh Rassilon, what have I done to her?_

Rose looked up at him through her lashes, and he felt his hearts melt a little under her gaze. In that instant, he knew that whatever else happened here, he would do everything in his power to fix what he had allowed to happen to this girl, and he was a bit startled by the realization. Perhaps Rose was right, and he didn't think about consequences enough.

"Doctor," Rose began, her voice small and pleading. "Can you promise me that whatever I tell you, you won't change what's going to happen? If I tell you how I got here, and what's happened to the both of us, you won't try to alter events?"

When he hesitated, her voice became more forceful. "Please, Doctor, this is important. As painful as my past is, especially where you're concerned, neither of us can afford even the tiniest change. There is a lot more riding on events than you could know from where you are in your timeline, and I can't tell you what happens unless you can _swear_ to me that you won't change any of it."

The Doctor nodded, secretly impressed with her insistence on keeping the timeline steady. Most humans would have begged him to change history, if just hinting at events could bring as much pain as he was hearing Rose's voice now. "There's something I can do, if I need to. Once this is sorted, I can block the memories, set up a trigger so I don't remember anything you've told me until it's safe to do so."

Rose sighed heavily, and made a study of her trainers as she scuffed one toe against the concrete. "Okay. Let's get the TARDIS sorted, and then I'll take you down into the Hub and you can sit down with a cuppa and listen to the whole sad story. Don't say I didn't warn you."

The Doctor felt a little wave of anger again at her mention of fixing the TARDIS. "What do you mean, sort the TARDIS? There's nothing to sort-she's dead, simple as that."

He saw Rose roll her eyes at him, and reach underneath the scarf on her neck. She pulled a chain out and over her head, holding it up in the light. At the end was a key, a very familiar one. "Told you before, Doctor. You were wrong last time, too."

He watched as Rose turned and unlocked the TARDIS, letting herself in without hesitation. The Doctor made to follow her, and then stopped up abruptly, nearly tripping over Rose as she turned and reached into his jacket, plucking the sonic screwdriver from his breast pocket and checking the setting, using it as a torch as she strode into the console room. _Well, she certainly acts like she knows what she's doing. _

"Hey now," the Doctor exclaimed as Rose lifted up a panel and swung her legs down to go below the console, "you can't just go poking around under there! You could break something!"

Rose shone the light from the sonic screwdriver up at him, and then around the pitch black console room. "Well, at this point, I don't think I can do too much more damage than is already done. Just give me a mo' to poke around, at least. Couldn't hurt, right?"

The Doctor's gaze followed the path the torch light had taken, before settling back on Rose's dim outline. "No, I suppose not," he ground out, trying not to let his annoyance come through in his tone.

Apparently, he failed in that goal, as Rose gave an annoyed huff of her own before dropping down. He tried not to wince as he heard the beginnings of crashing electronics and metal as Rose dug down through the bits and bobs he kept stored underneath the console, although he was surprised after hearing a particularly loud crash to hear Rose start swearing in perfect Mandarin Chinese. "You know," Rose's voice drifted up from below the decking, "you might want to consider a bit of housekeeping every few centuries."

"Generally don't let anyone else poke about down there," he shot back, becoming distinctly worried as the feeble light of the sonic screwdriver disappeared from view. A moment later, though, the TARDIS's emergency lighting finally blinked into existence, and a disheveled Rose appeared at the opening, holding up a power crystal, already whirring in its recharging cycle. At the edges of his mind, the Doctor felt the vaguest whisper of the TARDIS's normal telepathic murmur resuming.

Rose handed him the power cell and sonic screwdriver, giving him a small smile before pulling herself up to perch on the edge of the gap in the grating. "See? The old girl just needed some TLC."

The Doctor gave Rose a skeptical look as she leaned over and gave the console an affectionate stroke. He knew damn well what it took to push over a power cell into a recharging cycle like this, even when it was working properly. And he was certain this one hadn't been-there had been _nothing_ until Rose crawled under the console, not even emergency lighting. It would have taken a decade off of his life, perhaps more, if he had tried to do get the power cell working, with no guarantee that it would.

And in spite of the amount of energy she would have had to pour into the power cell to get it recharging, Rose was sitting in front of him, seemingly completely unaffected. The explanation she had promised him suddenly seemed that much more urgent.

"Well, it seems as though I have a day or so of waiting. I believe you promised me a story?" The Doctor offered Rose a hand up, which she accepted, swaying a bit unsteadily on her feet. _Not so unaffected, then._

Rose changed her grip, slipping her fingers between his as she led him back down the ramp to the TARDIS doors. "Yes, I suppose I did."


	5. Story Time

This chapter contains some slightly modified dialog from the beginning of Army of Ghosts and Doomsday. My apologies to RTD and the script writers for the butchery. And thanks for all the reviews, guys!

**Chapter 5 – Story Time**

_"I will open my mouth in a parable  
I will utter dark sayings of old.  
Things that we have heard and known,  
that our fathers told us.  
We will not hide them from their children,  
but tell it to the coming generations."  
- Psalm 78: 1-4_

~.o0o.~

The Doctor followed Rose in silence as she led him through the Millennium Centre and back into a service alley, the newer concrete in front of the theatre giving way to older pavings. The alleyways became increasingly labyrinthine, and he felt Rose's grip on his hand become marginally tighter, as though she was trying to reassure herself that he was still with her. _Perhaps she is_, he thought.

The more he thought about it, the more this Rose worried him. She spoke as though she had traveled with him for some time, and had spent even more time away from the TARDIS, presumably here in an alternate universe, but other than superficial details she had hardly aged from the girl he'd left in the alley a few hours ago. The few things he had learned about her so far weren't adding up. Just from her hints, though, he could guess that whatever had happened to bring her here had been traumatic, and although events hadn't played out for him yet, he could not help but feel guilt for what he was going to put Rose through.

Rose slowed in front of him as they turned into a dead end, and took care positioning him in the center of a rather rough looking square of paving. Before he could ask what she was doing, she tapped a discolored brick on the wall behind them, and jumped onto the concrete square next to him. He felt the concrete shift as she grabbed his arm, and warmth suffused through his body where she pressed close. Once again, he found himself struggling to remain detached from the sensation.

"Careful here," she smiled up at him. "The lift doesn't have any guard rails, and I don't think you'd fancy the drop."

The Doctor gave a mental shudder at the mention of a fall; just because his fourth regeneration had been one of the easier ones didn't mean it was a pleasant memory. "You know, Rose, I could really do without you leading me into a death trap at the moment."

Rose rolled her eyes at him, and the Doctor couldn't help but grin in response. She smacked his arm lightly, and he feigned a pained look just before he heard something slide into place over their heads. Darkness enveloped them for an instant, and then several flood lamps snapped on. Not that there was much to see—a fairly bare concrete room, unpainted, with power cables running along the floor to the lamps and lift. The cables converged and ran down a dimly lit corridor to their right. The drop to the floor was a dozen feet at best, but a person could easily break an ankle or arm if they landed poorly.

As the lift shuddered lower, Rose winked cheekily at him. "Now Doctor, it wouldn't be a day with you if there wasn't at least one life-threatening situation." The Doctor blinked in surprise, but bit off his retort as Rose jumped from the moving lift and landed gracefully several feet away. He waited until the lift had traveled a bit lower, and when he hopped down he knew his landing wasn't nearly as graceful. _With these gangly limbs, I'll be lucky if I managed to not look like something out of Laurel and Hardy._

Wait, why do I care how I look in front of her?

Rose was obviously suppressing a smirk, but said nothing about his dismount as she led him into the dim corridor. The cables seemed to vanish after about twenty feet, although the Doctor couldn't see where they had disappeared to in the walls or floor. The corridor sloped downwards, and after a while they came to a second room, this one containing a properly enclosed lift, accessed with a security card Rose pulled from the breast pocket of her coat. There were only two buttons inside, without labels. Rose pushed the bottom button, and the lift doors slid closed.

The Doctor's gaze flicked about the lift-typical brushed steel, except for the surveillance camera in the corner above Rose's head. "So what is this place, then?"

Rose's expression remained carefully neutral. "Torchwood. Well, Torchwood 3," Rose shrugged. "Torchwood 1 is at Canary Wharf in London, and houses the main research facilities, as well as most of the regular Torchwood staff. Torchwood 2 is a one-man operation running out of Glasgow. Here, we usually have a five or six man team, mostly for patrolling the Cardiff Rift."

The Doctor crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at her evasion. "Well, that's a nice way to answer the question without really answering the question. Mind telling me what Torchwood is, exactly?"

Rose closed her eyes, and the Doctor saw her jaw tighten. Her lips barely moved when she spoke again. "Founded in 1869 by Queen Victoria, for the purpose of protecting the Empire from alien threats. In our universe, it was because of you and me. She never did have much of a sense of humor. Here," she shrugged again, "the records are a bit muddy. Still had something to do with that werewolf we fought, but there's no clear account of how or even if it was destroyed. Vickie still managed to get away, though."

The lift shuddered to a stop as she spoke, and the doors slid open before the Doctor could ask any of the questions that her short explanation had set buzzing through his mind. All he managed to get out was a befuddled, "What?" before Rose spun to face him, wearing a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Welcome to the Hub, Doctor."

The Doctor's eyes followed the sweeping gesture Rose made with her arm. The underground room was large, obviously converted from some other, earlier use, although he would have been hard pressed to pinpoint exactly what that use may have been. The outer edges of the room were raised like a catwalk, and four small staircases led down to the central portion. There were several desks, with computers and paperwork in varying degrees of neatness. Wire shelving units stood in odd spots, containing bits and ends, everything from a basketball to a partially disassembled Meezon Rifle (and he found himself incredibly curious as to how they had managed to get their hands on that). A bank of monitors was set up against the wall opposite the lift, and there were several doors leading off to other rooms and areas. Blue florescent lighting flickered overhead, and sickly yellow light spilled from lamps on two of the desks.

"Just brilliant!" The ginger-haired bloke sitting in front of the monitors exclaimed snarkily. The Doctor found himself disliking the man almost instantly, especially when he saw Rose visibly stiffen when the man spoke. "Honestly, Rose. Better than watching Coronation Street, that was. You could sell tickets."

Rose's breath hissed out angrily as she crossed her arms and spun to face the man. "Didn't your mum ever teach you it's impolite to eavesdrop on other people's conversations, Bryce?"

Bryce stood, crossed his own arms, and snorted in response. "Well, you go up there unarmed, without backup; what am I supposed to do, sit down here with a thumb up my arse waiting for you to get yourself killed?"

"No, Bryce," Rose seethed, "you're supposed to follow orders. I seem to recall telling you to get some tea started when I went topside."

Bryce's arms unfolded as he stomped towards one of the doors. "The kettle's on, don't get your knickers in a twist."

Rose stalked down the stairs towards a desk decorated with an unlit pink plastic lamp and a prominently displayed crystal decanter of scotch, calling after Bryce as he tramped through the door, "My knickers are none of your damn business, Bryce Griffith!"

Bryce slammed the door behind him in response, and the Doctor winced in sympathy with the door frame. Rose scrubbed a hand over her face wearily, and peeled off the scarf and jacket, throwing them angrily across the back of the chair behind what he could only assume was her desk. "Like herding a bunch of bloody cats!"

Rose combed her fingers through her hair, closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths. Without the oversized tweed draped over her, the Doctor couldn't help but notice that this Rose seemed slimmer and more muscular than the girl he had left behind in the alley, an observation enhanced by the expanse of creamy white abdomen her wrap top displayed. His eyes were drawn to the characters above her right hip, the black ink standing out starkly against her pale skin. _Huai Lang... Bad Wolf? That's an odd phrase for a tattoo._

"Sorry about that, Doctor," Rose sighed, dropping her arms and opening her eyes again. The Doctor abruptly shifted his gaze back to Rose's face, uncomfortably aware that he had just been ogling her. "Apparently, Bryce has taken it upon himself to be an absolute git today."

"So he's usually not like this, then?" The Doctor strode down the stairs, towards Rose's desk.

Rose smiled ruefully. "Nah, he's always a git. Most days he's more subtle about it, though."

A polite cough sounded from behind them, along with a knock on another door frame. The Doctor turned to see another man, this one handsome and obnoxious with it, standing with his hands clasped loosely in front of him. "Sorry to interrupt, boss lady, but I'm having trouble finding that info you had me looking for."

Rose gave the man a weak smile. "It's okay, Matthew. I need to get something from out of the file for the Doctor to listen to, anyway. You go ahead and keep him company while I pull it out."

Matthew came down the nearest stairs to the Doctor while Rose took a small running leap back to the elevated walkway. When Rose reached the door Matthew had come out of, she turned and gave Matthew a narrow glare. "Oh, and if Bryce shows his face while I'm down there, feel free to beat him about the head and shoulders for me."

"He's finally getting to you, eh?"

"He was on my last nerve within a week of getting here," Rose growled. "If London hadn't made it clear that I absolutely had to keep him on, he would have been out on his ear ages ago."

Matthew nodded sympathetically. "I hear ya, boss."

Matthew and the Doctor watched as Rose retreated into the semi-darkness beyond the doorway, and turned to face each other nearly simultaneously. Matthew extended his hand in greeting. "Matthew Johnston, resident tech."

The Doctor eyed Matthew warily, not at all happy about being left in the company of the pretty boy, but shook his hand anyway. "I'm the Doctor."

Matthew raised an eyebrow. "Doctor...?"

The Doctor did his best to refrain from rolling his eyes. "Just the Doctor."

"Riiiiiiiiight," Matthew drawled sarcastically, his welsh accent coming to the fore. "And how do you know the boss lady, then?"

"It's complicated," the Doctor shrugged and folded his arms defensively, hands tucked up next to his chest. "Best to let Rose explain it."

Matthew snorted. "Yeah, like she'd ever do that." When the Doctor gave him a questioning look, Matthew shrugged and mirrored the Doctor's posture. "Rose Tyler doesn't like talking about her past much. All we know for sure is that she's older than she looks, knows more about aliens than just about any other person on the planet, and she's damn scary with it when she wants to be."

"Done gossiping about me yet, Matt, or should I go root around in the archives a bit more?" Matthew had enough sense to look abashed, rubbing the back of his neck as Rose came over and set a cardboard file box on the desk.

"Sorry, boss."

Rose rolled her eyes as the took the lid off the box and started digging through the piles of papers, data disks, and other items. She pulled out a bundle of plastic CD cases, and went over to one of the metal shelves and began digging through the detritus. "Just give me a mo' to get the Doctor set up, and I'll help you get started on those scans. Ha!"

Rose grinned triumphantly as she held up a portable CD player with a built-in speaker. "Knew we still had one around here somewhere!" she enthused, ignoring Matthew's skeptical look.

Rose grabbed up the CDs from her desk and gestured for the Doctor to follow her. The Doctor scowled at her back, not at all happy about being the only one in the Hub without at least a small clue as to what was happening. Rose led him into a small conference room, setting the discs and player on the table.

"Go ahead and get yourself settled, Doctor, and I'll see what's taking so long with the tea." Rose waved him towards the table, then scooted around him and out the door. The Doctor stared after her a moment, concern creasing his features. It was painfully obvious that Rose was uncomfortable with the situation, but he had no idea how to make things easier on her.

He sat and examined the player, taking out his sonic screwdriver and giving it a quick once over. The batteries were low (easily fixed), and the player was old, but it would work. Rose came in just as he finished recharging the batteries, carrying a tray with a full tea service. She set it down next to the player, and turned to leave. "Help yourself, and call out if you want more. The discs are labelled, and I'll make sure the boys don't disturb you."

"Rose..." the Doctor turned in his seat, and she looked over her shoulder at him from the doorway. "The whole story is recorded on these discs, then?"

"Yeah," Rose pursed her lips, and kept her gaze down, refusing to make eye contact. "I told it once, and I don't want to tell it again. Besides, if I was going to try, either I'd get upset and forget things, or you'd ask questions and I'd never finish. 'S better to just have you listen to the recordings."

The Doctor nodded, and Rose closed the door behind her as she left. He picked up the bundle, stinging his fingers as the brittle rubber band holding it together broke when he tried to unwind it. Shaking his hand to get rid of the sting, he opened the first case. As Rose said, the disc had been neatly labeled. _Torchwood Incident Report #CW000862/Audio Account. Tyler, Rose. Documented 12/28/2009. Disc 1 of 5._

The Doctor poured himself a cuppa, stirring the sugar in as he popped the first disc into the player. He forgot about his tea, though, as Rose's voice, shaky and distressed, floated from the slightly tinny speaker.

_"Planet Earth. This is where I was born. And this is where I died. For the first nineteen years of my life nothing happened. Nothing at all, not ever. And then I met a man called the Doctor, a man who could change his face. And he took me away from home in his magical machine. He showed me the whole of time and space. I thought it would never end..."_

"That's what I thought. But then came the army of ghosts; then came Torchwood and the war. And that's when it all ended. My name is Rose Tyler, and this is the story of Torchwood, the last story I'll ever tell. This is the story of how I died."


	6. Betrayal

Thanks for all the lovely comments guys! You're awesome.

**Chapter 6 - Betrayal**

_"In ancient shadows and twilights  
Where childhood had strayed,  
The world's great sorrows were born  
And its heroes were made.  
In the lost boyhood of Judas  
Christ was betrayed."  
- George William Russell_

~.o0o.~

Rose leaned against the wall just outside the door, pressing the heels of her hands tightly into her eyes. It was dangerous letting the Doctor listen to the CD transcriptions of her story. The Battle of Canary Wharf had hardly been the last engagement of the Cyberwar, at least in this universe, but it had dealt a crippling blow, both to the Cyberman armies, and to her, and the Doctor knowing the details was a significant risk to the timelines. But that wasn't the only reason.

The discs she'd kept in that box were the only complete record-the account in the "official" Torchwood archive in London was less than half the length, having been heavily edited by Mickey for her before it was cataloged. The recording in her private file included details about both the Doctor and herself that she considered too risky or personal to be archived, but that she had needed to get out so that, for her, the telling would be complete. On those discs she recounted parts of what had happened on the Gamestation, some details she had gleaned from the Doctor about Daleks and the Time War, and how they had landed in this universe originally.

It was also the only time she had ever spoken aloud what had been exchanged between the Doctor and herself during that two minutes on the beach at Darlig Ulv Stranden. After doing the edits, Mickey had dropped the last pretenses of romantic interest or entanglement with her, contenting himself to be her best mate and moving on to Jake. At the time, it was exactly what she needed, and in her happier moments, she had teased him about flexibility and laughed when he was confused. Mickey would look at Jake and shrug, and Rose would do her best to refrain from bringing up Jack or the Doctor, at least out loud.

Not for the first time, Rose wished she was brave enough to visit their graves more often.

Rose dropped her hands and grimaced. This Doctor, the one listening to the girl she had been ninety-some years ago pour her heart out to a microphone, was vehemently against "domestics". Oh, he had no aversion to washing up, or movie nights, and actually took a perverse pleasure in the rituals involved with having a proper cup of tea. For him, "domestic" meant sharing emotions, reaching a level of personal interaction where judgments and comforts were expected as a matter of course. And there were things she said in those recordings that were quite domestic indeed-parting declarations of love would be greeted with horror on the part of this Doctor, she knew.

Oh, but it was so _tempting_, to treat him like she had before. She had felt herself being drawn into that old pattern of interaction with him again; as if no time had passed for her at all, as if he had traveled with her. The playful banter, the teasing, and most of all the flirting, things she hadn't indulged in for decades. In the space of half an hour, she'd set herself up for heartache-right now, the only question in Rose's mind was whether she would merely continue to fracture, or if this Doctor's reaction (and she knew it would be bad) to what had happened would be the blow that allowed her to finally shatter after all these years.

"You okay, boss?"

Rose looked to where Matt stood next to her desk, the contents of the box that compromised her personnel file partially spread over her desk. Bryce was thumbing through a bound folder, eyebrows raised in what could have been surprise or shock-she wouldn't know until she took the folder away whether he was reading over her disciplinary reports or the results from one of her vivisections.

Rose waved a hand and gave Matt a weak smile. "I'm fine, Matt. I'm always fine."

Bryce snapped the folder he was reading shut. "Normally you're a better liar than that, Rose," he sneered.

"Bryce," Rose narrowed her eyes, injecting venom into her voice, "I don't really care what you think about me, but I'm seriously not in the mood to put up with your lip. Not today. If you can't behave like a civilized human being, you can go home early."

Bryce sniffed haughtily, tossing the folder onto her desk and knocking it and several like it to the floor at Matthew's feet. "Guess I'll just grab my coat then."

Rose joined Matthew next to her desk, stooping to help him gather the scattered papers and folders. Matthew shot Rose a sympathetic look, and she sighed and shrugged. "This'll go faster without his second guessing anyway. Let's get this sorted and find the radiation profile so you can start scanning."

As they heard the lift doors slide shut, Rose heard Matthew mutter, "Good riddance," and found herself having to suppress a giggle.

~0~0~0~

In the tunnels leading from the primary lift to the surface lift, Bryce stopped in a darkened section that he knew to be a blind spot in the CCTV network. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and dialed in a number he knew better than to put into his speed dial. After a few rings, the other end picked up, but there was no voice in greeting.

He wasn't expecting one.

"Agent Griffith reporting. Suspicions about subject confirmed. Suggest immediate containment. Will rendezvous with field team at site delta for briefing and strategy at 1630 hours."

Bryce flipped the phone shut, ending the call, and allowed a smug grin to spread across his features. _You want a civilized human being, Rose? I'll show you just how human I am._

~0~0~0~

The Doctor stared, unseeing, at the wall in front of him, teacup still gripped in one hand, the tea untouched and stone cold.

The recordings had spanned the better part of ten hours. About six hours in, he had become vaguely aware of someone coming in and depositing a take away carton on the table-he hadn't looked up to see who brought it, and for all he knew the box contained a dozen ravenous weasels instead of the curry that the scent of the steam implied. He could not eat, not while hearing the story Rose had committed to disc.

The Daleks had survived. Not just survived-they had _flourished_, and the destruction of Gallifrey had been for _nothing_. True, the Daleks were denied access to the Matrix and the Eye of Harmony, but they had switched targets, expanding and taking millions of human lives in the process before being put down. They had fallen through time, and hidden in the Void. Raw terror and rage bubbled up inside of him, knowing that his people's sacrifice was in vain, that he would have to fight them over and over again, the last Time Lord against the Dalek legions.

But he hadn't been alone, had he? No, Rose had been there, had fought alongside him. Another veteran of the Time War.

She had said she loved him.

The Doctor wasn't quite sure how to process her declaration, aside from the bare fact that he just plain did not _do_ things like love-his eighth self had been the romantic, and look where that had led. No, he did not love, and with all the blood on his hands he certainly didn't deserve to be loved. For all Rose had stood by him (according to her story), he couldn't see how he had done anything except put her in danger and ruin her life. He had made her into another soldier and victim of the Time War, staining her with his darkness and exposing her to things no one should ever have to witness. He could now see, comparing the girl Rose had been in the alley and the woman who was outside the conference room doors, that somewhere along the way she had become a little broken.

And she had wanted to stay with him in spite of that. _Perhaps she is more than a bit mad, after all. That would make two of us, then. _

The Doctor finally blinked, rubbing his free hand over his eyes and surprising himself when his fingertips came away moist. _Crying twice in one day? I must be getting soft in my old age._ He forced his other hand to uncurl from around the teacup, flexing his fist to bring the circulation back after having held his fingers in one position for several hours too long.

He stretched as he stood, bouncing on the balls of his feet a few times to get his legs working again before slipping out of the conference room and back into the main room of the hub. It was considerably darker now, most of the lights having been shut down for the night, with the space now being illuminated by the ghostly blue glow of the CCTV monitors, two computer monitors, and the feeble yellow light of the pink lamp on Rose's desk. The Doctor crossed his arms and leaned against the doorjamb, his eyes settling on Rose's form.

Rose was sitting tipped back in her chair, feet up on her desk and ankles crossed, watching intently some sort of readout on her monitor. She held a pen up to her mouth with her left hand, plastic cap between her teeth. Her other hand stroked lazily over her right side, in the spot where he remembered seeing her tattoo earlier, and the keyboard for her computer was laid across her lap. She didn't look up, seeming to take no notice of his presence, which made it a tad unnerving when she spoke.

"You can come down and join me, if you like," she said, her eyes never leaving the monitor in front of her. "I promise I won't bite, unless you ask really nicely."

The Doctor didn't move, and raised an eyebrow at her in a silent question, which he doubted she would have been able to see in the darkness even if she had been looking towards him. After a beat, she sighed and dropped the pen onto her desk. "Or you could just continue to hold up the door frame. Far be it for me to question you adding to the structural integrity of my workplace."

The Doctor felt a smile ghost across his face, and marvelled at Rose's ability to make light of the current situation, considering the certainty of awkwardness between them. "How did you know it was me?"

He saw the corner of Rose's mouth twitch up, but her gaze stayed resolutely on the monitor. "I sent Bryce home ages ago, Matthew is passed out on the couch in the lunch room, and the only other things that might be lurking down here would have made to have a go at my jugular by now."

The Doctor's eyebrows rose at that, but he decided to let the comment pass as unimportant; if there was something potentially deadly walking around down there, he was fairly sure Rose wouldn't be reclining in front of a computer. "What is that you're looking at, then?"

"Energy readings for the rift. Spikes in electromagnetic activity, radiation levels, and temporal fluctuations usually precede something coming through, and we try to be there when it happens for damage control. Even the mundane stuff tends to cause a bit of chaos if left unchecked. There was a large spike right before you landed, actually," Rose let out an annoyed sniff. "Matthew and Bryce were too busy sniping at each other to notice it. Good job it was you and not something dangerous..."

The Doctor's face fell, but before he could say anything, she put a hand up to stop him. "And don't you dare give me a line about how you really are dangerous. You know damn well what I meant."

Rose finally looked towards him, swinging her feet back to the ground and setting the keyboard back on the desk. She gave him a sympathetic look, standing and walking towards him, stopping just out of arm's reach. She crossed her arms, hugging herself in an unconscious gesture of insecurity. "You okay?"

The Doctor looked at her, her eyes wide and eyebrows drawn together in an expression of worry, and in the face of her naked concern it never occurred to him to tell anything but the truth. "I've been better."

Rose nodded, dropping her arms, the worried expression remaining. "Yeah."

The Doctor gave in to impulse, stepping towards her. Rose met him halfway, crashing into him as he buried his face in her shoulder, hands gripped tightly to her waist as her arms circled his neck. "Oh Rose, they... they..."

Rose made a sooshing sound, running soothing fingers through his hair. Her voice was full of anguish when she spoke. "I know, Doctor. I know."

The Doctor took several shuddering breaths, trying to get himself back under control, remaining wrapped around Rose. As he did so, he became more sensitive to the feel of her skin under his hands, warm and soft. But off somehow; her skin was warm, but it wasn't the fever-heat he normally felt from humans. It was barely warmer than his own. And as he noticed that, he became aware of another sensation, one both welcome and terrifying-another mind slipping against his, murmuring in the darkness. He focused on it, drawing it out, and suddenly she was _there_, blazing golden light and the mournful howling of a wolf echoing in the space where Gallifrey used to be.

He heard Rose gasp sharply, rapidly stiffening in his grip and then relaxing again as he jerked his head back, blinking at her in disbelief. "That's impossible..."

Rose gave the Doctor a small smile, trailing her fingers up his neck and lightly caressing his cheekbone with a thumb as a single tear fell free from her lashes, splashing down her face. "You keep using that word," she teased, her voice shaking with emotion. "I don't think it means what you think it means."

"Aw, how sweet," a sarcastic drawl rang out across the Hub, and Rose leapt from the Doctor's grasp, taking several steps backwards and scrubbing a hand over her cheek to rid her face of the traces of her emotions. He saw a steely mask slip into place as she whirled in the direction of the voice, and he turned to face the same direction.

The Hub's main lighting flickered on, and Bryce stepped forward, smug grin plastered across his features. The Doctor's gaze swept the room, and he didn't like what he saw-a dozen men and women, dressed in stealth gear and armed to the teeth. He had been so focused on Rose he hadn't heard them coming in.

He and Rose were surrounded.


	7. Being Human

Warning: Just a tiny bit of profanity in this one, for those of you with delicate ears.

**Chapter 7 - Being Human**

_"We are all brothers under the skin - and I, for one, would be willing to skin humanity to prove it." - Ayn Rand_

~.o0o.~

Rose's eyes widened momentarily at Bryce's intrusion, and then narrowed in comprehension. "You fucking snake," Rose hissed. "No wonder London wouldn't let me fire you."

Bryce shrugged, unruffled by Rose's ire. "I was under orders to figure out what you were doing here, after the archivists at Canary Wharf noticed a pattern of glitches and missing records spanning back several decades. It helped ever so much when you left those records out this afternoon." Bryce gave Rose a wolfish grin. "The transcripts of your vivisection were _fascinating_."

As she heard the Doctor suck in a sharp breath, Rose's jaw tightened, and her knuckles were white as she clenched her fists. She could feel fingernails biting into her palms; she knew from past experience that the pain would keep her focused and prevent her losing control. She was good in a hand to hand fight by necessity, since she refused to carry a sidearm, but even she knew that she stood no chance against a dozen heavily armed operatives.

She could feel the cool presence of the Doctor in her mind, a reassuring background rumble of thunder against the gold she was accustomed to. She concentrated for a moment, unsure of how exactly how to communicate, but trusting her instincts. _Just play along, Doctor. _

Rose felt an annoyed thrum in her mind. _What else am I supposed to do? Dance a jig?_

_Wouldn't be the first time,_ Rose thought back glibly, before carefully re-erecting the psychic barriers her Torchwood training had instilled. She had been sloppy, allowing them to slip while the Doctor was holding her, and she couldn't afford the extra distraction now, when they had this many weapons trained in their direction.

Nevertheless, her mind felt hollow once the barriers were back in place, and reverberated with an emptiness she had not been aware of until that moment. Suddenly, she knew she had an inkling of what the Doctor felt with the rest of his people gone. _It's a wonder he didn't go completely mad._

Rose uncurled her fingers, crossing her arms and leaning with forced casualness against the edge of Rhiannon's desk, returning Bryce's smirk. "Which time would that have been, Bry? I recall landing on the vivisection tables in London twice. Not exactly five star accommodations, in case you're wondering. That steel was bloody _cold._"

"And you would know. What was it the xenobiologists said? 'Subject continues with verbal abuse of examiners, even under extreme duress and trauma.' Kept enough of your head about you to insult them as they removed your organs," Bryce sneered. "And not even a scar to show for it. That is _impressive._ I'm going to have so much fun figuring out exactly how much abuse that pretty body of yours can take."

Rose sucked in an angry breath, ready to tell Bryce exactly what she would do to him if he dared lay a finger on her. She heard the Doctor shift closer to her, and knew he was giving Bryce his best intimidating glare. Or at least, that's what she thought until she heard him speak.

"Is this what your world is like, then, Rose?" The Doctor's voice was soft, but she could hear the barely restrained fury underneath. She tore her gaze away from Bryce, and looked up into the Doctor's face. His expression was impassive, unreadable to anyone who didn't know him as well as she once had, but she could see the hurt and anger swimming dangerously just behind his eyes, his attention focused on her, unheeding of the dozen operatives surrounding them. It had been too long, though—she couldn't tell if the anger was directed at her, or on her behalf.

Rose kept her own anger under a tight rein, and kept her eyes on his face as she replied in a low, angry hiss, "Things aren't supposed to be like this. And this isn't my world, Doctor. Never has been."

"At least the freak admits it," she heard Bryce sneer from across the Hub. He tutted at her in distaste. "I can't believe London allowed you to play house down here for so long. Only God knows where you've managed to stick your fingers over the years. Good thing London has decided to reassert our original charter, eh?"

Rose spun to fix her gaze on Bryce again as her eyes widened in horror. "You wouldn't… you can't!"

Bryce fixed Rose with a nasty smile. "We already have."

"But, what about the treaties? Interplanetary trade? The refugee colonies? All those people…"

"Those _things_ are not people!" Bryce thundered, flinging an arm out to point at the door leading to the containment cells, where the Weevil she had brought in the night before was starting to make a distressed keening sound. "They're not human, and if the brief glance I got at your files this afternoon is any indication, neither are you."

Rose allowed his words to sink in, and straightened her back, letting her anger flow away and replacing it with as much dignity as she could muster. It was the first time anyone had said the words openly; in her mind it was an affirmation of what she had known all along, and instead of guilt or shame, it filled her with an odd sense of relief that she didn't have to pretend anymore.

Rose gave Bryce a pitying glance, and then looked away. "If being human means being like you, Bryce," she said softly, "then perhaps it's a good thing that I'm not anymore."

~0~0~0~

The Doctor was doing his best to keep up with the verbal play between Rose and Bryce, but internally he was still reeling. Rose had touched his mind in a way he hadn't felt since the final moments of Gallifrey. There were plenty of telepaths in the universe, but they would not have had access to the part of his mind left empty by his planet's destruction—only a Gallifreyan mind could have made that link, that deep buzzing connection in the back of his head that pulsed with a steady rhythm: _you are not alone._

And after a few brief mental touches, barely a whisper, she had cut him off again. He knew she was supposed to be there, she was still standing right in front of him, but the golden mental presence, the plaintive wolf's howl she had projected, had disappeared. If he didn't know better, he would think the contact had never happened at all.

But it had, and that could only mean one thing; Rose, this Rose, was Gallifreyan. While one part of his mind was exulting in the face of no longer being the last of his kind, the rest of him couldn't quite make sense of the situation. Rose, the younger Rose that he had left behind in the alley, had been undeniably human. She had been naïve, her body burning with fever warmth, and he could see the grains of her life slipping away as her natural human lifespan rushed forward on that heady tilt from cradle to grave that her species followed.

No creature that he was aware of could change species. There were plenty of species with shifting morphology, including Gallifreyans to a limited extent, but their essences remained the same. The Rose he had left behind had been human, and this Rose was definitely not, which meant… what?

He jiggled the puzzle pieces in his mind, but the picture just wasn't adding up. He knew he was missing some vital piece of information, something that would make Rose and her situation make sense, but he couldn't figure out what. Then, the present moment intruded on his musings, and he ran Rose's last statement through his mind again. _"If being human means being like you, Bryce, then perhaps it's a good thing that I'm not anymore."_

The Doctor focused on those words. _Not anymore. _

"How?" he asked suddenly, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. When he noticed the confused look on Rose's face, he elaborated, his attention focused solely on her; it wouldn't be the first time he'd had an important personal conversation while weapons were trained in his direction, and he doubted it would be the last, so he just ignored them.

"When I left you in that alley, you may have been a lot of things, but one thing I knew for sure was that you were human. People don't just change species, Rose."

Rose gave him a wary look, and crossed her arms defensively over her chest. "I did," she muttered, her eyes dropping down and away as she confirmed his suspicions.

"How?"

He saw Rose huff out an exasperated breath, and shoot a pointed glance in Bryce's direction. "I'd rather not in front of the peanut gallery."

"Rose…" The Doctor pleaded, using a finger to tilt her chin up so she would meet his eyes. "Tell me."

He saw Rose searching his face for a moment, and a resigned look passed over her face. Her voice was soft when she spoke. "On those discs, how much did I say about what happened on the Gamestation?"

The Doctor thought for a moment, shifting through the hours of information he had recently absorbed. "Not much all told. You said the Daleks were there, and that I sent you away to keep you safe. Don't much like that you didn't stay where I put you, though." He shot Rose a wry look, and saw her roll her eyes in response.

"You didn't just send me away, Doctor," Rose whispered. "You tricked me. Used an emergency programme to make the TARDIS take me home. You said…" Rose pressed her lips together in distress, before continuing in a slightly stronger voice, "You recorded a message. Told me that you were planning on dying, and that you hoped it was a good death. You said I should just abandon the TARDIS, let her die and be buried as the world went on. Asked me to have a fantastic life."

Rose took his hand, intertwining their fingers and griping tight. "I couldn't do that. I couldn't just leave you alone up there to be killed. You showed me a better way of living my life, showed me the universe … I couldn't just go back to working in the shops and eating beans on toast and leave you to it."

The Doctor gave Rose a small smile, and gently returned the pressure on her hand. He didn't know what he had done to inspire that kind of loyalty and he felt he didn't deserve it, but he was fiercely glad that he had it all the same. _Perhaps I'm not such a lost cause, after all._

Rose cast her eyes downwards again, and he could tell by the expression on her face that he wasn't going to like what she had to say next. "I went a little crazy. It took some doing, but I managed to open the console. I looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and she looked into me."

The Doctor sucked in an angry breath. _How could she be so stupid?_ The look on Rose's face, though, stopped the lecture on stupid apes trying to get themselves killed before it could leave his mouth. She was on the verge of tears, her lip trembling as she searched his face.

"It's still so fuzzy. I remember light, and singin'. I remember the pain. And through all of that, all I could think of was that I wanted you safe, and I didn't want you to be alone anymore." Rose took in a shuddering breath, emotion playing plainly across her face. "I was burning alive, dying. But I did it; I got the TARDIS to go back, and I used it to turn the Daleks to dust. I named myself—Bad Wolf. I scattered my name through time and space, created a paradox so I could lead myself to where I was needed, so I could protect you."

"I don't know what happened next, exactly. I woke up on the grating in the console room, and we were flying away. You told me later that you took the power from me, kept me from dying, but…" Rose's brow furrowed, as though she didn't want to relive the memory.

"I didn't notice anything at first. You regenerated, but it went all wrong, and you were so sick. We left again once you were better, and everything was happening so fast, all the time, that I didn't realize until later. I wasn't getting hurt as easily, I could keep up with you without having to make as much of an effort. I started sleeping less. For the longest time, I figured I was just becoming used to life with you, getting better at living at the same pace, and you never said anything."

Rose seemed to regain a bit of her composure as she continued, her eyes now firmly glued to the floor. The Doctor made no move to force her gaze up again, shocked as he was by what she was saying.

"The last time you brought me home, just before… well, everything," she made a small, helpless gesture with her free hand, "Mum finally noticed something was off. She told me that someday there'd be this girl, a million miles away on an alien planet, but that I wouldn't be me anymore. I wouldn't be human. I brushed it off, told her that it didn't matter; I was still her daughter no matter what. I figured she was just scared of losing me because we were off traveling so much."

"And then the world fell apart. I fell through the breach, got trapped here. After what happened at Darlig Ulv Stranden, I sort of shut down for a while. I threw myself into my work in Torchwood in London, trying to take my mind off things. Spent a lot of time taking care of my sister and pretty much ignoring everything else. When I started… how do I say it," she looked up at him quizzically, "_perceiving_ things differently, stuff that wasn't there or had already happened, I figured I was finally losing it."

The Doctor nodded, recognizing the sensation. It had been frightening enough, as a child on Gallifrey, having one's extra senses awaken as you aged even when you knew it was coming. He could only imagine what she had gone through; not knowing what was happening to her and suddenly receiving extra sensory input that should never have been possible for her.

"Six years on," Rose sighed, "I was looking through some photos with Lily, from right after she was born. You know how kids get; all naively observant… she asked me why I still looked the same. No one else had noticed before that; we were all so caught up with getting Torchwood up and running, with cleaning up after the Cyberwar, with trying to get ourselves settled into our new lives."

"By then, Mickey and Jake were working as field agents, and they were able to slip a blood sample into the lab for me. When the results came back, and I finally figured out what had happened, what I had been changing into… well, you weren't around any more for me to tell."

The Doctor stared at Rose in worried wonder. She had changed herself, for him. He wasn't alone anymore. He hesitated for a moment, and then pulled Rose into a fierce hug, squeezing her tight as she let out a choked sob of relief.

"Well," the Doctor smiled into her hair, his own eyes shut against tears and his voice tight with emotion, "that explains the tattoo."


	8. Cause and Effect

Thanks once again to all my reviewers, favorites, and follows! I'm happy to say that the first chapter of the sequel, _Maybe Too Soon_, is finished and the second chapter mostly done. Holy crap, I'm writing for reals again!

**Chapter 8 – Cause and Effect**

_"At such moments, you realize that you and the other are, in fact, one. It's a big realization. Survival is the second law of life. The first is that we are all one." - Joseph Campbell_

~.o0o.~

"What the hell is going on out here?"

Rose stiffened in the Doctor's embrace, clutching the lapels of his leather jacket as she turned her face towards the voice but making no move to step away from his comforting warmth. Matthew was standing in the doorway to the break room, his hair mussed and clothes rumpled from sleeping on the couch, wearing a bewildered look as he took in the scene before him.

The sound of Matthew's voice brought Rose back to the present, and she cursed at herself mentally as she became uncomfortably aware of the dozen agents surrounding them, weapons trained in their direction. A part of her rankled at the fact that she was allowing the Doctor to distract her so easily; she had more combat and field experience than all of the agents in the room combined.

"I'm not entirely sure, Matt," Rose ground out between clenched teeth, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "but I do believe that this is what's called a mutiny."

Matthew blinked a few more times, and then turned an icy glare in Bryce's direction. "Griffith?"

Bryce raised an eyebrow in Matthew's direction. "Rose Tyler has been declared a hostile alien presence as dictated by the original Torchwood directive. She is to be immediately contained and transported to London for observation, along with her little _friend_."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Matthew exclaimed. "Rose is weird, yeah, but an alien? And _hostile_? She refuses to carry a gun, for chrissakes!"

"You said it yourself earlier, Matt," Rose interjected softly, cutting off his tirade before he could fully swing into it. "I'm older than I look. Way older, actually; 113 years, last time I bothered keeping track. 68 of them spent running this office. 'M not human, haven't been for a long time."

Rose felt the Doctor's posture stiffen under her hands when she stated her age, and knew he had worked out roughly how long she had been living here. She turned an admonishing look on him, knowing he would feel some sort of misplaced guilt for her predicament. "And don't you dare blame yourself for it," she chided, poking him in the chest. "We did what we had to, and we saved millions of people's lives."

Rose gave the Doctor a bitter smile. "Getting stuck in the wrong part of reality was a small price to pay. And it wasn't that bad, not really. I still had my family, got to watch my little sister grow up. Loved my job, at least when they weren't trying to dissect me." Rose shot a glare at Bryce, and then turned her attention back to the Doctor. "A very long time ago, you asked me to have a fantastic life. And you know what? I did. I really, truly did."

She finally stepped back out of the Doctor's embrace, and faced Bryce fully, crossing her arms over her chest in what she hoped looked like a defiant gesture, rather than a defensive one. She noticed that Matthew had moved to his computer while she was speaking, and was hurriedly reviewing the results from the final, global sweep they had initiated to find traces of radiation from the Void.

"It may come as a shock to you, Bry, but I honestly don't care what you do to me at this point. You really should reconsider playing along with what London wants, though." She fixed him with a withering glare, which he briefly tried to match. After a moment, he averted his eyes.

"You're messing with things, with events, that you couldn't possibly begin to understand, Bryce, and that's on top of screwing with eighty plus years of interplanetary diplomacy. Time isn't linear; it loops in on itself constantly. A person can be born in the future and die in the past. You've seen it yourself, these past six months, when people get displaced from their timelines by the Rift. The man next to me," Rose said, tilting her head towards the Doctor, "comes from a point in my personal timeline, long before I lived here. If you take him to London, and keep him from getting back to where he needs to be, the consequences of the paradox you create will be catastrophic. It'll make that Debronian invasion 15 years ago look like afternoon tea with the President by comparison, assuming you survive long enough to realize what's happening."

Bryce said nothing, refusing to meet Rose's gaze. She could tell by the way he was holding himself, however, that he was looking for excuses to disregard her warning. Matthew cleared his throat to get her attention. "Boss lady?"

Rose looked down to where Matthew was seated in front of his computer, and gave him a wan smile. "What did the scans find, Matt?"

Bryce whipped his head towards Matthew with a snarl. "Don't answer her, Johnston."

"With all due respect, Bryce," Matthew drawled, "until you have Rose in cuffs and a restraint collar, she's not in custody, and she's still our boss. Besides," Matthew gave Bryce a brittle smile, "I outrank you."

~0~0~0~

The Doctor grinned manically at Matthew's defiance.

"Final scans are showing the same thing as the initial scans," Matthew said while scrolling through screens of raw data. "The radiation you asked me to screen for is showing up in trace amounts globally. There are slightly stronger concentrations on a beach in Norway, at the Canary Wharf building in London, and in a private cemetery near… the Tyler Estate?"

Both the Doctor and Matthew gave Rose quizzical looks, but her expression remained neutral as she nodded for Matthew to continue. He cleared his throat, turning his gaze back to the screen. The Doctor kept his eyes on Rose, but her mask was well in place, and her expression gave away nothing. "The only place I've been able to find that has more than a trace amount of the radiation you asked me to scan for is directly over our heads, on the Plass."

"Well, Rose?" asked Bryce, obviously desperate to regain control of the situation, "Mind telling all of us simple humans exactly what this means?"

The Doctor saw Rose shoot daggers at Bryce with her eyes, and decided to intervene before she said something that would get both of them shot. "Actually, Rose, I'm rather curious why this is important, meself."

Rose gave him a considering glance, one eyebrow raised. He could tell she knew he was trying to distract her, and that she wasn't going to fall for it; she had finally been pushed too far for one day. "You know, Doctor, I'm finally starting to understand why you used to refer to humans as stupid apes when you got frustrated."

The Doctor chuckled, and the corner of Rose's mouth twitched up. "The radiation I had Matthew scanning for was from my original medical workup, right after I crossed the Void, before it started becoming obvious that I wasn't human anymore. Void stuff is rather unique as radiation goes—completely harmless to organisms exposed, but extremely easy to detect. You could see a layer of it covering me and you just by putting on a cheapy pair of 3D movie glasses."

Rose uncrossed her arms, warming to the subject. "Thanks to the actions of both the Cybermen and Torchwood, there were tiny breaches made in the Void all over the world as the Cybermen moved from this universe to that one towards the end of the Cyberwar. That's why there are trace readings of Void stuff everywhere here. The slightly stronger readings are in places where there were larger breaches—Darlig Ulv Stranden is where we said goodbye, and Canary Wharf was the site of the original breach between the two universes."

"What about the cemetery?"

Rose's expression became shuttered again, and her voice was quieter when she continued. "Void stuff clings to any object it touches, and has an extremely long half life. My mum, this universe's version of my dad, Mickey, and Jake all passed through the Void during the battle at Canary Wharf. My sister also absorbed trace amounts while Mum was pregnant with her."

The Doctor watched as Rose slowly crossed over to her desk, her eyes down as she ran her fingers over the coat she had draped on her chair. "That cemetery is where they're all buried. I keep telling myself I'm going to visit more often, but…" she trailed off with a half-hearted shrug, not wanting to continue.

In that moment, the Doctor saw what Rose had had to go through; giving up everything she wanted, being forced to watch everyone she loved wither away, having to hide in plain sight lest someone figure out what she had become. He watched her pick up her coat and shrug it on, draping her scarf over her neck, and saw the movement for what it was—the donning of armor, emotional if not literal. It was a gesture he performed often enough himself.

When she had finished putting on her coat, she had returned to her previous tone of voice, although the Doctor had to wonder who she was attempting to fool. "The concentration on the Plass could be one of two things. Either the breach the TARDIS just came through has closed and the Void stuff we're detecting is just what's clinging to the old girl's skin, in which case we're fairly well screwed when it comes to getting you back where you need to be, Doctor, or…"

The Doctor's eyes widened as he finished her thought. "Or the TARDIS is sitting in the breach, plugging the hole."

At that moment, the entire Hub shook violently, sending shelving and equipment crashing to the floor, along with most of the Hub's occupants. The Doctor and Rose remained standing, their stances both shifting to accommodate the movement with practiced ease.  
Rose dived towards the Doctor, grabbing his hand and running towards a door he hadn't been through yet. He followed, listening to the angry shouts of the downed Torchwood agents behind them. "Where are we going?"

"Secondary entrance," Rose huffed as she led him around a corner. "The tremors have likely knocked the lifts out of service, and if my hunch is right, we need to get back to the TARDIS now!"

The Doctor bit his tongue, resisting the urge to question her as he heard the sounds of pursuit behind them. Rose crashed through a door and started sprinting up a stairwell, with the Doctor hard at her heels. On the fourth turning, he heard the door open below them, and Bryce's voice yelling, "Halt!"

The order to stop only seemed to spur Rose on, though, and the Doctor heard her laugh breathlessly ahead of him as she picked up speed. As she burst through the final door into daylight, she turned to face him wearing a brilliant, heartfelt smile. "Just like old times!"

The jubilant expression fell from her face, though, when confronted with the scene playing out on the Plass. The smoking wreckage of a large cargo trailer-truck, its cab bearing the Torchwood logo, lay on its side near the entrance to the alleyway they stood in. Half a dozen people in varying degrees of business dress (possibly agents, possibly innocent bystanders, impossible to tell without searching through their pockets) had been thrown across the ground like matchsticks, limbs and necks twisted at angles that made it unlikely they were merely unconscious from the blast. More people were running away from the scene, panicked and crying.

The TARDIS had been blown across the Plass, although she remained upright. There were deep gouges and scars in the paving where she had skidded across the ground. In the spot where the TARDIS had stood, a brightly glowing fissure in reality wavered and shone. With another crack and tremor, it widened, the breach's boundary coming to rest on the ground as it expanded wide enough to fit five men through, shoulder to shoulder.

The Doctor put his hands up automatically in a posture of surrender as he heard the shouts of Bryce and the other agents behind him. Glancing over at Rose, he saw that her face had paled in the first stages of shock, her eyes glued to the growing fissure in reality ahead of them. She did not react to the men behind them. He looked over his shoulder, and down the barrel of Bryce's pistol.

"When I tell you to stop, you bloody stop!" Bryce's breathing was ragged. His grip on the pistol was shaking, and slackened completely when he saw the devastation out of the alley mouth. The firearm dropped to the ground with a clatter.

The Doctor addressed Bryce with a growl. "Did you order them to try and move the TARDIS?" At Bryce's nod, the Doctor lost his temper. "You idiot! The TARDIS was the only thing holding that breach stable!"

Bryce puffed up his chest, attempting to defend his actions. "Your box needed to be taken in for study! You don't expect me to leave an alien artifact like that out in the open, do you?"

"People DIED to serve your misguided hatred of anything different!" The Doctor roared. "You can't honestly tell me that their deaths are justified!"

A terrible screeching sound, metal on metal, interrupted the Doctor's tirade. The clanging of hundreds of metal boots echoed from the breach, along with wheezing artificial voices. The Doctor turned his head to look at the breach again, and he felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, a heavy sense of dread pooling in his gut. Shadowy figures appeared in the ever-widening tear, finally emerging into reality. Cybermen poured out of the breach in file, weapons poised as they chanted, "DELETE!" in terrible unity. Daleks flew from the breach above them, the cry of, "EXTERMINATE!" echoing through the sky. Both sides began locking on to anything that moved, fire from their weapons sizzling the air to strike at each other, with the humans who hadn't been quick enough to leave the Plass caught in the crossfire. Screams filled the air, along with the scent of scorched flesh and seared iron.

"Congratulations, Bryce," Rose said, her voice oddly devoid of emotion in spite of the tear that had escaped to roll down her face. "You just restarted the Cyberwar."


	9. Storm

Just the epilogue left, folks, before the sequel starts. I do have the first chapter done, but I'm having trouble choosing between 3 different villains. So, poll time! Let me know who the bad guy should be: Rassilon (mid-time war era), the Master (7th Doctor era), or an original alien race. The sequel will feature Rose in the aftermath of this story, and the 7th Doctor, so my brain is wrestling with which direction to go. I already have the general plot outline, but which villain is featured will determine motivations and dialogue around the plot macguffin. So, review this and let me know! The first chapter of _Maybe Too Soon_ will be posted next week.

**Chapter 9 – Storm**

_"Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage." - Ralph Waldo Emerson_

~.o0o.~

The late evening dark hid them in the alley mouth, but that didn't stop everyone from ducking when a stray Dalek bolt hit close by. Everyone, except Rose, who stood numbed and transfixed by the sight of the ever-widening breach. She dimly registered Bryce's cries for explanation, the Doctor's concern over her current mental state (_his emotions brushing against her walls, and it was so tempting to let them fall again..._), and the general panic surrounding her.

She watched as the Cybermen and Daleks poured out and engaged in their monstrous combat, and memories she had done her best to suppress for more than ninety years threw themselves to the front of her mind.

_Her fingers slipping from the lever as the pull of the Void continues unabated, even after the last of the Daleks flies into the breach. She can feel her skin tearing, and her grip slips. She cries out in terror as she falls, echoed by the Doctor screaming her name. She feels the uncomfortable thump of impact when she crashes into Pete, and has time for one last glimpse at her Doctor's face, full of horror and disbelief._

Rose shook off her mental shock, forcing her mind back to the task at hand. They had to seal the breach, and they had to neutralize the Cybermen and Daleks while they were at it. She whirled to face the men at her back, not at all surprised to see that several of them were beginning to panic in the face of such an overwhelming set of threats. _Rookies,_ she thought ruefully.

"Right," Rose stated, her tone taking on the weight of authority. "We need a plan, and we need it fast. You two," she ordered, pointing to a couple of agents who didn't seem to be panicking as much as the others, "take up defensive positions near the alley mouth. Do not engage the enemy unless fired upon directly. We need to avoid drawing their attention for as long as possible."

Rose's authoritative tone caught Bryce's attention, and he shouted, "Don't move!" to the agents who had begun to follow Rose's orders, flinging an arm out as if to block their path. Rose narrowed her eyes, and in a movement far too fast to be tracked by the humans there, leapt forward a pace and landed a hard right hook on Bryce's jaw, spinning him bodily and sending him, sprawling and unconscious, to the ground. "Bryce Griffith," Rose said, a wolfish grin spreading across her features, "it is my utmost pleasure to inform you that you're fired."

Rose nodded her head towards to alley mouth, signaling to the agents to continue up and take position. They saluted in acknowledgment as they passed her, and Rose waved her hands in a shooing motion, motioning for everyone else to move farther back into the alley. Matthew let out a low whistle as he looked over Bryce's prone form. "Boss lady, remind me never to piss you off."

Rose barked out a mirthless laugh. "Believe me, Matt, if you ever managed to piss me off half as much as that git has at this moment, I'd have your bits nailed to the wall as a trophy." When Matthew paled and turned a bit green, however, she gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder and a small smile. "That was meant as a joke, Matt."

Matt swallowed heavily, and gained back some of his proper coloring. "A joke, right," he mumbled nervously, casting a final sideways glance at Bryce before retreating back down the alley.

~0~0~0~

The Doctor winced as he heard an explosion echo down the alley from the Plass. As much as he appreciated Rose's command of the situation, time was running away from them both, and people were dying. This had to end, and soon.

Once the remaining agents were a safe distance down the alley again, the Doctor took hold of Rose's elbow. "Last time, at Canary Wharf, tell me how we managed to suck the Cybermen and Daleks into the Void."

"There was very little 'we' involved, Doctor," Rose replied with a sarcastic edge to her voice. "Plus, the situation was very different. That breach was created using a machine. You did your jiggery-pokery, and when the breach opened everything coated with Void stuff was pulled in. I couldn't follow the technical stuff behind what you were doing—the next version of you has a tendency to prattle, by the way. This breach is natural as far as I can tell, uncontrolled, and expanding. Maybe if we had some way of reversing the particle flow through the breach, without getting you, me, and the TARDIS killed or worse..."

Rose's words sparked an idea in the Doctor's mind, which quickly blossomed into a plan. "Rose Tyler, you're a genius!" He exclaimed, giving her an excited and enthusiastic embrace. At her shocked and bemused look, he explained, gripping her upper arms and grinning wildly. "I can reprogram the TARDIS to act like an anchor! Pilot her through the breach, and everything carrying Void radiation will get sucked back in, sealing the breach once the last of them are through. Since the gap I fell through on the other side sucked me in, it should also seal shut once we come back through it! Fantastic!"

The Doctor saw a spark of hope flash quickly across Rose's face, and in a trembling voice, she asked, "We?"

The Doctor's grin relaxed into a smaller, more genuine smile, and he rubbed his thumbs over her shoulders in a soothing gesture. "You don't belong in this universe, Rose. Only fitting I should take you back to where you came from. Afraid you won't have time to pack, though."

Rose giggled, reaching one hand to her TARDIS key, and the other pulling a worn black billfold from her back jeans pocket. "'S alright. I kept the important stuff on me," she said, flipping open the billfold to reveal two photographs. The first showed a younger, blonder Rose sandwiched in between himself and another man, all three of them grinning madly for the camera. The second picture was Rose playing with a brown man in a brown suit, surrounded by Christmas decorations—his next body, he guessed.

In both photos, the Doctor was struck by how incredibly _happy_ they looked. Rose didn't look that happy now. Neither did he. _But I will soon. And, hopefully, so will she._

~0~0~0~

"You're leaving us then?" The Doctor turned his head to look at Matthew, as Rose closed the billfold and stuck it back into her pocket, her other hand still clutching the TARDIS key at her neck.

"Yeah, Matt, I am," she said, a hint of sadness in her voice, "and I'm not coming back this time."

"What about this mess then?" Matt gestured towards the alley mouth, at the chaos on the Plass.

"The Daleks and Cybermen will be pulled back through the breach as we close it. As for the damage...," Rose trailed off, and when she spoke again her voice was steely. "Call the press. Use my name to get in contact with as many alien governments as you can, as well as the independent refugee colonies. Get the word out about what happened here. If that fails to get the wankers in London responsible for this strung up by their short hairs," Rose pulled a card from her jacket pocket, passing it to Matt with a sort of reverence, "get in touch with this man. He's the current head of the Preachers. Mrs. Moore's great-grandson."

At Matthew's surprised look, Rose's mouth quirked up in a small smile. "Just because I've been part of Torchwood doesn't mean I've trusted them. Besides, someone has to watch the watchers. Tell him the Bad Wolf sent you; you'll be safe as houses with the Preachers unless you prefer otherwise."

Matthew nodded grimly as he tucked the card into a pocket, before snapping up into a military salute. "It's been an honor, Miss Tyler."

Rose returned the salute, albeit in a more casual manner. "Likewise, Mister Johnston," she grinned before pulling him into a hug. "Take care of yourself, Matt. Apologize to Rhiannon and Thom for me."

Rose broke the embrace before Matthew could respond, walking past the Doctor and towards the alley entrance. She stopped just short of walking into the open, motioning for the agents she had ordered to watch to stand back. The Doctor followed behind her, coming to her side and scanning the battle before them. "Of course," the Doctor said quietly, "we still have the problem of getting to the TARDIS alive and in one piece."

Rose studied the scene playing out in front of them. She pointed, making sure the Doctor saw what she did. "We can stick near the debris for a good portion of the way. If we sneak behind the truck and around that collapsed wall, we can pretty much stay hidden until the last fifteen meters."

"And after that?" The Doctor quirked an eyebrow up in challenge.

Rose shrugged, returning the Doctor's challenging look. "We do what we do best," she held out her hand and wiggled her fingers, inviting the Doctor to take her hand. "We run."

~0~0~0~

The Doctor took Rose's hand, squeezing lightly. Her face was set in an expression of cheerful determination, but her fingers were trembling in his grip, belying her nervousness. They moved out together from the alley, sticking to the shadows, dashing behind debris and ducking down.

Metallic screams, the sounds of laser fire and twisting metal, and terrifying electronic voices filled the air. The Doctor didn't worry about being quiet—the sounds of the fighting would disguise the sounds of their movements more than easily. He tried not to gag on the scents of ozone and burning flesh. Glancing at Rose, he saw that her face had slipped into an expressionless mask, like it had below ground when dealing with Bryce. If she was affected the sounds and scents of the carnage near them, she was doing an admirable job of tamping down her emotions until they were out of danger.

The Doctor reflected that they had been uncharacteristically lucky as they reached the edge of the final bit of ground cover. There were no Daleks directly overhead, and the nearest Cyberman was nearly twenty meters away, and not near the TARDIS. _If we dash for it,_ the Doctor thought, deliberately broadcasting the thought towards Rose, _we might make it to the TARDIS without drawing any of their fire._

Rose's mental shields never dropped, he noticed, but she had obviously picked up on his message regardless. She nodded, dropping his hand, and yanked the TARDIS key over her head, the chain briefly becoming entangled with her scarf before she freed it and held it ready. They shared a look, and then rose as one and started running towards the TARDIS.

For the first five meters, they went unnoticed. Then, the nearest Cyberman turned towards them and raised its weapon, a cry of, "DELETE!" ringing through the night air as it opened fire on them. The Doctor put on speed, weaving as he ran to confound its fire. He heard a brief, pained grunt from Rose, but the sound of her steps just behind him never faltered.

He crashed to a halt just before the TARDIS door, Rose on his heels. She raised her right arm and slid her key into the lock, laser blasts singeing the panel next to her. They tumbled through the door together, Rose slamming it behind them and throwing the manual bolt as the Doctor ran up to the console.

"Damn!" The Doctor swore and slammed a fist down on the edge of the console, earning a disapproving thrum from the TARDIS. "She's not finished charging. We don't have enough power to leave."

"Let me worry about the power," Rose said, striding up to join him at the console. "You just make the modifications you need to so the particle flow will reverse as we pass through the breach, and get her ready to go."

The Doctor watched as she leaned forwards, placing both hands against the time rotor and shutting her eyes. Her left hand was bloody, and there was a scorched hole in the sleeve of her tweed. Without opening her eyes or turning her head, she addressed him. "It's just a flesh wound. Stop staring, start working."

The Doctor scowled at her, but moved to obey in spite of his inclination to do otherwise. He knew they didn't have the time, and was trying very hard not to reflect on the irony of that. He quickly tweaked settings and adjusted wiring, managing to jiggery-poke (_oh, how he enjoyed the way Rose had said that, and he saw no problem in stealing the phrase_) a work around system to attract Void stuff to the TARDIS in a matter of moments, a solution that would cause the flow of radiation and anything covered in it to reverse through the breach when they entered it.

As he worked, the TARDIS's hum grew stronger, peaking to a level even stronger than before he landed here just as he finished setting the coordinates to send them back through the breach. He looked up to see Rose stagger back, leaving a bloody hand print on the time rotor. She leaned heavily on the edge of the console, her breathing ragged and pained. "Rose?" he asked, his voice filled with concern.

She looked up, her face sweaty, pale, and drawn. "'M fine. She should have enough power now."

The Doctor blinked in surprise when he realized she was right—the TARDIS was practically buzzing now. "How?"

Rose gave him a shaky smile. "Save the universe now, explanation once we've done and snagged a nap and a cuppa."

The Doctor grinned at her, initiating the dematerialization sequence and flipping over the final settings that would turn the TARDIS into a particle anchor. The TARDIS shuddered around them, lights flickering as she screamed back into the Void, drawing the Cybermen and Daleks after her. It seemed like an eternity and an instant all at once. The shaking seemed to go on forever, but stopped almost sooner than they could process.

The Doctor checked the screen, scanning the Vortex for any sign of the breach that had drawn him into the alternate universe in the first place. There was no trace of it. He looked up at Rose, whose knuckles had gone white from the force of her grip on the console. "The breach is sealed. There's no sign it was ever there to begin with. Not even a scar."

"It's over?" Rose asked in a tremulous voice, fingers finally loosening their grip. At his nod, she let loose a strangled sob, jumping forward and wrapping her arms about the Doctor's neck. He stroked her hair and rocked her back and forth, even as they fell to their knees on the grating.

"It's okay, Rose," he whispered at her temple, pressing a light kiss there as she shook with her tears. "It's over."


	10. Epilogue

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, fav'd, followed, and just generally been awesome while I got this up here. The sequel, _Maybe Too Soon_, will start going up on Wednesday. Please review on here to let me know where you want me to go with the villain in that story!

**Epilogue**

_"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival." - C.S. Lewis_

~.o0o.~

Rose pried herself from the Doctor's arms, apologizing for her emotional outburst and shuffled her feet, embarrassed. The Doctor took in the blood still dripping from her left hand, and ordered her to the medbay, where she removed her tweed, wincing both from the pain in her arm and the damage to her coat. She wiggled a finger through the hole, sighing as the Doctor cleaned and dressed the wound on her forearm. "So much for my favorite jacket."

"I would think you'd have greater concerns than your coat, Rose," the Doctor scolded, although the twinkle in his eye told Rose he was being playful rather than genuinely annoyed. She smiled at him, which he briefly returned before hopping up on the medical bench beside her. "How, Rose?" The Doctor asked, confusion and curiosity warring on his face.

"How what?" Rose countered, not letting him get away with asking such a general question.

"You know very well what, Rose," the Doctor said, his annoyance genuine this time. "No one, not even a Time Lord, could give a TARDIS that kind of energy without dying. When you first came in, the TARDIS was entirely dead herself, and you managed to get her charging and recovering again. At the very least, doing what you've done should have caused you to regenerate!"

Rose shook her head and laughed slightly at the Doctor's worried expression and confusion. "Doctor, how do you think my body managed to handle being converted from human to Gallifreyan? That process alone should have killed me. I've been carrying residual energy from the heart of the TARDIS since the Gamestation. It's what enabled my change, and it's why I haven't been aging properly—even I'm not thick enough to think that I shouldn't have aged at least a bit in the past 93 years!"

The Doctor and Rose shared a chuckle at that, and Rose's smile remained as she talked. "All I've done is put back what I borrowed. I still have some of that energy left lurking somewhere in my system, but if it was gonna harm me, it would have done long before now. I might be shaky for the next few days, but I'll be fine."

The Doctor nodded at her explanation, helping her off the bench. Rose grimaced as she shifted her wounded arm, and the Doctor's face filled with concern. "Do you want something for the pain?"

"No," Rose said, allowing her face to relax. "Pain is good; it reminds me that I'm still alive."

Rose chose not to look at the Doctor's face as she left the medbay, leaving it to him to find what wisdom he could in the comment.

~0~0~0~

It took nearly a week for the Doctor and Rose to repair the damage to the TARDIS that falling through the Void and the battle coming back had inflicted on her systems. The Doctor worked on the technical systems that Rose didn't understand, while Rose soothed and strengthened the TARDIS's telepathic functions, her bond to the ship growing stronger in the process.

Rose had borrowed a white T-shirt from the wardrobe room, refusing to throw out her damaged pink top and tweed. When the Doctor questioned her during one of their breaks, she had shrugged and simply said that she had worn them for seventy years, and that she had done far worse to them in the past. It was nothing a competent tailor couldn't fix, for enough money.

Rose stepped out of her shower on the morning (well, she thought it was morning) that she had decided to have the Doctor drop her off, the skin on her forearm mostly healed, and studied herself in the mirror. She hardly recognized herself anymore. There were a few more golden streaks in her hair now, the result of her channeling the vortex energy she carried back into the TARDIS. She was so much leaner, so much harder, than the chavvy blonde who had started traveling with the Doctor all those years ago.

Life hadn't been easy for her. _But,_ she thought, _I still mean what I said back when I was trapped with the Dalek, in Van Statten's bunker. I wouldn't have missed it, any of it, for the world. The Doctor is so very much worth the monsters, and the heartbreak. Thank you, Sarah Jane. Thank you, Reinette. You were right, more than you know._

Rose wrapped herself in a towel, walking into the bedroom she had been using. Laid out on the bed, completely repaired and stain-free, were her pink wrap top and tweed jacket. She felt a thrum of appreciation and gratitude from the walls, and the lights brightened a bit around her. Rose smiled, and put on her clothes, patting the wall as she realized that the TARDIS had tailored her jacket—the tweed hugged her curves now, instead of hanging off her shoulders, baggy and over sized. _Don't worry girl,_ Rose thought up and out at the ship, _you'll have me back before you know it._

When Rose stepped into the console room, the Doctor was already dancing around the controls. He started speaking, trying to keep a cheerful mask, but he did not look up at Rose, telling her everything he felt with that action alone. "Right. I've reset the TARDIS's internal chronometer, so after I drop you off and suppress the memories it will only seem like a few hours have passed instead of eight days…"

The Doctor trailed off and paused his movement as Rose put a hand on his arm. He swallowed heavily as he finally looked her in the eye. Rose allowed her mental shields to drop, the warm gold of her thoughts mixing with the Doctor's stormy grey in a tender caress. A tear dropped down the Doctor's cheek, as he confessed, "I don't want you to go."

"I have to," Rose said softly, her hand stroking his arm as her thoughts brushed against his, attempting to soothe. "There's a younger version of me that needs to be picked up in that alley, and an older incarnation of you I need to find and snog senseless."

The Doctor let out a grim chuckle, shaking his head and looking away. "You said no, you know."

Rose shrugged and the corner of her mouth quirked up. "Yeah, but you forgot to tell me something."

"I did?" The Doctor looked at her, perplexed.

"Yes."

~0~0~0~

Rose stepped away from the TARDIS, leaving the alleyway as she listened to it dematerialize behind her. As she looked around, though, she realized that the Doctor's driving had been off, again. There were no people on cell phones, no SUVs, and the fashions were all wrong.

After wandering for about half an hour, she finally found a newsagent's, and quickly scanned a paper for the date. September 12th, 1978. And the paper had been the Western Mail, not the London Times. The Doctor had dropped her twenty-eight years and 213 kilometers off. _Oh well,_ she thought as she strolled down towards the river, _at least it's not Aberdeen._

Two weeks and one fake identity later, she was sitting back in a rather uncomfortable chair in a stuffy office, obviously the domain of a military man. Said military man entered the room, and gave Rose an annoyed glance, sniffing in a disapproving manner before sitting behind his desk. "Ms. Zły Wilk, is it? I don't appreciate having my time wasted by precocious girls who somehow manage to talk their way past security checkpoints. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't hand you over to the civilian authorities and be done with you."

"Col. Crichton, I assure you, I'm neither a girl, nor a waste of your valuable time, although I'm fairly sure the label of 'precocious' will do quite nicely," Rose said, giving the Colonel a warm smile. "A little birdie told me that UNIT is in need of a new scientific advisor, and I've come to offer my services, if you'll have me."

~0~0~0~

The Doctor shook his head, clearing his mind and forcibly reeling his thoughts in from where they had wandered to. He wasn't sure why he was allowing himself to become so preoccupied with thoughts of Rose. She had turned him down, for Rassilon's sake!

He turned to glance at the monitor, noting that he had been brooding for almost three hours. The TARDIS was drifting in the vortex, no longer moving towards a specific destination. He double checked, and discovered that the temporal anomaly he had originally set the TARDIS towards had disappeared, apparently having resolved itself without his interference. _There's a first time for everything,_ he mused.

The Doctor stopped short, and a wild grin bloomed across his face as he reset the coordinates to take him back to the alley where he had just left Rose and her idiot boyfriend. _Time!_

The Doctor was heading down the ramp as soon as the TARDIS shuddered back into reality. He threw open the door, taking in a smiling Rose and a bewildered Mickey. He tried not to sound too desperate, as he extended his second invitation to Rose, leaving the door open behind him, somehow sure that she would come rushing in behind him.

"Did I mention it also travels in time?"

_~fin~_


End file.
